Raising the Bar on Business Intelligence

03/10/2010 Posted by schou

Let’s face it. Business intelligence as an industry has been a bit of a Quixotic quest. The problem hasn’t been the ends, but rather, the means. What began with basic reporting evolved into a non-stop race with features such as ad-hoc reporting, natural language querying, and semantic layers that ostensibly enable typical business users to suddenly and magically use a highly technical tool to solve their problem on their own. I think it’s safe to declare that BI is not really working well in many cases. In fact, I can sympathize because even as a highly technical person, I often find it easier to  write a query or a script rather than arm wrestle with some of the business intelligence tools I’ve used.


I don’t blame BI vendors. The features that have been incorporated in the past few years have been nothing short of amazing, and in the hands of a skilled practitioner, allow serious data analysis. But the key words are “skilled” as in many dozen hours of training as well as “practitioner” as in near daily usage. Let’s just say that BI tools aren’t exactly a walk-up ATM style interface.


Business users in general, and our customers in particular, have been long frustrated by this state of affairs. Business oriented software such as ERPs, procurement platforms, and VMSs have largely approached this problem in a similar manner as the BI players. In fact, many software vendors have approached the problem by licensing and bundling in a third-party BI tool and trying to foist the problem onto them. We’ve taken a different approach tackling the problem head-on with our integrated reporting functionality that is designed from the ground up to be used in context of the application rather than being a bolt-on component that was included as an afterthought.


I’m proud of our reporting capabilities which I believe, and many customers agree, are best-in-class. It can slice and dice, pivot, drill down, and chart data. There are formulas, summaries, roll-ups, drag-and-drop, and all of the other goodies that have come to be expected of a BI tool. However, we also have the added advantage of a seamless user experience, automatic inclusion of any user-defined fields, built-in user-level security and visibility profiles, and true enterprise-wide unlimited dynamic reporting.


That said, there has always been a part of me – fueled by watching how our customers interact with our solution and spending time with them getting to understand how they would like to use their data in our system – largely unsatisfied with the status quo. I had a gnawing feeling that our reporting functionality was a starting point rather than an ending point. Call me a constant critic, but I challenged our team to come up with something better. Something that goes beyond the sales presentation. Something that will be used on a daily basis. Something that will cause customers to change their thinking and direction at both a tactical and strategic level.


I’m proud to say that the team has come back with some very compelling answers and the potential is pretty awesome. I’m not going to say that we’re 100% there, but we’ve been noodling on this problem for the past few years and have made great progress. Now it’s a matter of productizing. Last year, we began to phase in portions of our answer to this BI dilemma, and throughout this year and next, we’ll continue to phase in more components.


I’ll write more about it over the next few months. I’m very much looking forward to sharing our thinking and soliciting feedback.



Soccer and the SaaS Business Model

03/05/2010 Posted by Arun Srinivasan

In The Talent Code, author Dan Coyle explores why talent develops in specific regions or environments (like baseball in the Caribbean or tennis at the Spartak Club in Moscow). For example, have you ever wondered how Brazil became a hotbed for soccer talent? Coyle found his answer in futbol de salao or futsal. Most young Brazilians practice this form of soccer, which is typically played indoors with a heavier ball. Aha! Futsal forces you to practice the “right” way before playing in full-sized outdoor fields. Specifically, he mentions that futsal players:


- Touch the ball more often (smaller play area leads to more ball contact)
- Are forced to develop more complex moves (long aerial passes are not an option)
- Grow accustomed to operating in tight spaces (precision is a necessity; no room for error)


After reading this, I couldn’t help but draw parallels to the business world, and, more specifically, to SaaS business models. The Software-as-a-Service model is, in my experience, inherently designed to best serve customers. Similar to the constraint-driven world of futsal where players learn the “right” way, SaaS companies too have operational and financial constraints that naturally drive them to do business the “right” way for themselves and their customers.


Unlike traditional ASP or behind-the-firewall solutions, with SaaS-delivered solutions:
- The development process leaves little to no room for shortcuts (deploying customer-specific patches leading to a “patch-o-rama” situation)
- There are no upgrade or maintenance costs (widespread adoption is in the provider’s interest)
- Innovation frequency is high (there is no better motivation for innovation than the need to earn your business everyday)
- There is a high premium on quality (there is immediate feedback from the customer base)
- The deployment time is significantly faster (the model itself drives providers to lower implementation costs)


Simply put, the SaaS model is a “no opt out” model. Back to the soccer analogy, you’ll learn to dribble better if aerial passes are not an option.


It’s interesting how you end up doing things right when the “right way” is the only option you have.



Do You Know a Pro to Know?

02/26/2010 Posted by Anna Burke

Earlier this week Supply & Demand Chain Executive announced its 2010 honorees of its annual Pro to Know awards. I am personally a big fan of industry related awards that honor individual accomplishments and wish there were more of these types of awards in our industry (hint, hint, Staffing Industry Analysts, if you’re reading).  Andrew Reese, editor of Supply & Demand Chain Executive, calls it well. He said, “Our goal with the annual ‘Practitioner Pros to Know’ listing is not only to highlight outstanding Supply Chain executives and their accomplishments but also to turn a spotlight onto the initiatives that leading organizations are undertaking to give their companies a competitive advantage as the economy emerges from the Great Recession.”


I’ve nominated our customers for this award in the past and would like to do so again for the 2011 awards. If any Fieldglass customer is interested in being featured as a Pro to Know next year let me know!


The magazine also recognizes Provider Pros to Know, those that represent a software firm or service provider, consultancy or analyst or research firm. I’d like to personally congratulate our own Chris Dede, head of our Professional Services group for garnering a Pro to Know nod this year. As Dede would say, You Rock!


Have a good weekend everyone.



My Take on Starting a Company in, yes, Chicago

02/24/2010 Posted by Jai Shekhawat

Laura Rich recently focused on Chicago as the subject for her series on “Why You Should Start a Company in…” in Fast Company. You can read the entire article here. For the piece, Rich interviewed a fellow Kellogg School of Business alum, Matt McCall, now a partner at New World Ventures and managing director at DFJ Portage. McCall offered some great insight into entrepreneurialism in Chicago.


Fieldglass is my second start-up here, and it’s a tremendous city for entrepreneurs in my experience. There is a very deep pool of technical and general business talent in this area and they tend to value stability. This is an advantage since it takes time to build great companies. Every startup projects $50m in five years but it seldom works out that way. Not many recall that it took Microsoft 8 years to get to $50m in revenue. Oracle took 10 years. A criticism sometimes leveled against the region is the lack of early stage money. In comparison to the Valley there is some truth to that. However there are strong angel networks and Fieldglass was able to raise over $1m in angel funds when we started. This was followed by an investment from Prism, a local venture firm.

Any other local entrepreneurs out there with an experience to share?



It’s Raining Research. Now’s the Time to Learn about Services Procurement.

02/02/2010 Posted by Anna Burke

I can’t begin to tell you how frequently people ask if I have access to third party, non-biased validation of Fieldglass’ market position or other tools that could help prospective buyers wade through the confusing and fragmented landscape of contingent workforce management and services procurement. The long list of acronyms is enough to cause heart palpitations.


It certainly seems that Services Procurement research and analysis appears to be heating up. Take for example two new reports published just this week:


“FAQs About Vendor Management Systems and Managed Services Providers”, written by Patrick Connaughton, Senior Analyst, Forrester Research with support from his colleagues, Christine Ferrusi Ross and Phillip Karcher.  (I’m working to secure reprint rights to this report so it can be made available free of charge to our customers, partners and other followers.)


“Selecting Services Procurement Technology – Options, Approaches & Philosophies”, by Jason Busch of Spend Matters. (This report is free to readers after completing a brief registration form on the Spend Matters site.) Read More »



The HR (or Procurement) and PR Disconnect

01/22/2010 Posted by Anna Burke

The January issue of Human Resource Executive magazine landed on my desk the other day. I was in need of a break from my computer screen so I flipped through the pages and came across and article entitled, “The HR/PR Connection”.  Back up…there is a connection between HR and PR? I’ve been looking for a strong relationship between business functional areas and their corporate communications counterparts for years.


It is frustrating to me when I am trying to help a customer gain some recognition for their initiatives and we get crushed by the corporate communications hammer. Take for example these comments I received just in the last couple of weeks…


“I agree that we are a good example [for the story] but our communications teams shy away from these sorts of things.”

 

“Thanks for your offer to nominate me for that award, but our public relations group said I need to decline. Sorry.”

Read More »



Improving Your Talent Pool to Prepare for Changing Labor Demands

01/11/2010 Posted by Deanna Freise

ERE.net is currently running an interesting three-part series entitled “Emerging Talent Acquisition Trends for 2010: Are you ready for a roller coaster ride?” by HR thought-leader Dr. John Sullivan (who you can read about here).  Sullivan stresses the need for companies to adopt a more strategic contingent labor strategy in 2010. He predicts a volatile market where companies will need to quickly ramp up or down depending on business needs.  Read More »



UAE: A nation built by temporary workers

01/07/2010 Posted by Jai Shekhawat

I took a short break in the United Arab Emirates on my way to India over the holidays.  Some observations….Only a quarter of the workforce are ‘emiratis’ as the locals are known. Almost 40% of the workforce is Indian, mostly laborers from villages all across India who are called in or released depending on construction requirements. Western expats tend to occupy executive  positions and stay longer. Restrictions on property or business ownership for non-emiratis essentially make most of workforce temporary. They come to make money but usually not to stay. Read More »



Recovery 2010 & the Rise of Contract Talent

01/05/2010 Posted by Anna Burke

The reviews are in about the state of the economic recovery and all signs point to…..hummm? There is considerable debate ensuing among economists and pundits alike about the current economic indicators and the likeliness of a swift recovery. Regardless of the speed and success of the recovery, how companies choose to utilize temporary and contract workers will play a role in this ongoing drama. The Bureau of Labor Statistics found temporary hiring in November, 2009 to be up to its highest levels since 2004. Read More »



Key Considerations for your Contingent Workforce program in 2010

12/18/2009 Posted by Arun Srinivasan

Recent reports (from the US Dept of Labor, Staffing Industry Analysts & BusinessWeek, to name a few) show temporary worker employment on the rise, continuing well into 2010.   This growth, along with other changing business conditions, will impact stakeholders managing contingent workforce programs.  Here are some key questions and considerations to take into account while planning for 2010: Read More »